Children of Taboo
by JuubiOokami
Summary: “You want to know something sick Goku? I bet she’s so happy that she’s dead.” Goku see's a side to Gojyo that he's never seen before when he finds the red headed Kappa holding the dead body of a red headed child. Angst. Rape. Child abuse. My usual stuff.


**Another little fanfic from moi! I love all of the Saiyuki characters, but I'll admit left right and centre that I have a bit of a soft spot for Gojyo.**

**Right now this is a One-Shot, but depending on what people tell me I may continue because I really feel like writing a Gojyo angst fic! (I say Gojyo, but I would probably toss in a whole bunch of the others problems as well.)**

**In anycase tell me what you think!**

**Disclaimer- I can only wish I was smart enough to come up with this manga! **

** Unfortunately**** I don't own, so please don't sue. **

**Warning- Probable grammar errors (sorry 'bout that'), language, and mentions of Rape and Child abuse.**

**-**

**Gojyo**

It was meant to be a normal day right? Just another one of those days were demons attack us for no reason, we shoot at them and keep on driving. One of those normal 'Everyone-is-trying-to-kill-us-because-we're-the-Sanxo-party-and- we're-trying-to-restore-balance-to-the-world-and-shit' days. Hell, even if it wasn't normal the only exceptional thing I would have expected was it to be possibly one of those 'that-damn-bishop-Hazel-is-back-and-we-hate-his-freakin'-guts' Days.

It was just going to be a boring day, a normal day (as much of 'normal as we can achieve) just…one of those days. That's what I expected, that's what I had assumed.

I was wrong. Wow, there's the greatest surprise in the world.

Sha Gojyo was wrong.

I saw the blood in the river when I went to collect fire wood. I was more curious then worried, I'll admit. I mean, it could have damn well just have been one of those demons we had just killed, it could have been nothing…but I wanted to have a look anyway.

I walked from the camp, following the steady little trail of blood until I found the source.

Now I think about it today is one of the worst days of my life.

Yeah…

I think the Monkey agrees to.

-

**Goku**

"Go…Gojyo?"

He doesn't respond as I shift from one foot to the other. The damn Kappa's ignoring me.

No…

He's not ignoring me, he just doesn't know I'm here yet. He's just standing their waist deep in water holding the body.

"Gojyo?" I try again walking forward. It's a bad sight…a really bad sight, really pitiful, really…

Sad.

He moves all of sudden, getting out of the water with her still in his arms. He walks up to the bank, soaking wet but with a determined look on his face.

I follow him from a distance as he moves onto a dryer surface and lays her down. Then he rips off his jacket and puts it on her, covering her pale naked skin as best he can.

She's so small the Jacket covers her nearly up to her knees.

"Give her some damn decency." Gojyo mutters when he's finished, and then he just sits and cradles her.

I walk slowly forward and sit beside him. He's still looking down at her young face, but something about the way he breaths, about his body language says that he has finally acknowledged my presence.

"How did you find me?" he asks.

"I smelt blood." I respond.

"It wasn't mine."

"It smelt like it."

"I don't doubt it." His arms tighten around her, his fingers bailing into fists.

"Why…why did that happen to her?" I finally ask, as he raises a hand and brushes some of the hair from where it's pasted damply to her face. "She's didn't have any wounds but she was still bleeding from her…her…" I can't find the words.

"She was raped Goku." He pauses before finally looking at me, his eyes burning, "Do you know what that means?"

"Yes."

"And then, or during she was strangled, thrown into the river and left to die."

"Why?" I feel my breath hitching as I look at her again. Her eyes are wide open, the sunset colour still shining through from behind the glazed death. Gojyo's still stroking her long red hair.

"Why?" He rasps and I look at him feeling my insides turn. I had expected an answer …not such a look of pain. "Because if Yokai are dirt and the things born in between are worse then that…then the people who did this to her are the scum of the world." He goes to stroking her face now, I can see that he's shaking badly. "How old is she?"

I know he wants the answer, but I can't give it.

"Eight years old? Even that?" He hangs his head and screams into his chest, eyes firmly shut "HOW FUCKING OLD IS SHE!?" He stops himself, his breathing hard and raged, but his voice suddenly so soft and chocked I could almost fool myself into thinking it came from someone else "And all because…she…"

He's shaking so badly now I'm getting scared. Surely Sanzo or Hakkai heard that shout…surely one of them will come…

Gojyo looks sick.

I feel sick.

The girl's only just dead, but as I reach out to the skin on her neck she's freezing to the touch. Gojyo see's my action and jerks her away, his eyes alight with fury. I pull back with fright, he looks like a wild animal. For one second I don't recognise him at all, I can't put a connection between the guy I know and the one who's sitting here shivering clutching the body of a dead child to him like it's the only thing left in the world.

But then I see him calm and his eyes close again.

"Sorry."

I accept the apology without a word and put my hand forward again. This time I touch her face, running my hands against her white cheeks. When I get to her eyes I close them, and then I go to her jaw and do the same.

Her eyes stay closed, but her lips slack open again, and no matter how many times I try to do it again, it opens repeatedly as I shut it.

Gojyo eventually stops my desperate struggle and grips my fingers in his own. His hands are boiling compared to the skin I just felt.

"She's like you." I say.

"Yeah. That's right."

"Why did they kill her? Rape her?"

There's a beat and then he releases my hand and continues stroke her face gently, "Probably because they could Goku, probably because she's nothing but…" he doesn't finish and I see his shaking getting worse.

I blink as I suddenly realise that I'm shaking too. I hear Gojyo gasp out a breath and speak again.

"We're not meant to exist. You know that right Goku? Humans and Yokai aren't meant to have kids. We're taboo. We bring death, pain, illness and bad luck. We're-"

I cut him off this time as he begins to sob dryly in the back of his throat. I have both hands firmly placed on either shoulder.

"You're not like that Gojyo. That's complete and utter shit! Some stupid guy just made that all up because they didn't like yokai and humans together! Ok?"

He doesn't respond, and his face kinda starts to go green so I grab him by the chin and make him look at me.

"Ok!?" I demand, and he kinda just stops and stairs at me.

"Why are you crying?" he suddenly asks, eyes wide with curiosity.

I hadn't realised I was, but now that he mentions it I can feel the tears streaming down my face.

"Because it's sad." I say lowering eyes, "Because it's…" I shake my head, "Because it hurts you."

There's this long pause, and then suddenly I hear him give this strange laugh. I stare up at him with surprise. He's got this smile on his face but his eyes are wet with unshed tears.

"The world needs more people like you kiddo, more brainless, stupid, glutinous, animalistic, instinct driven, air-headed idiots."

I stare at him open mouthed at this sudden torrent of the usual jokey abuse. Then he suddenly gives out a loud sob and doubles over the body in his arms.

"The world needs more people with hearts like yours."

I watch him as he rocks forward and backwards, his shoulders shaking like he's having a fit. When he speaks again his voice is low, calm, almost dangerously neutral.

"Once, when I was six I beat up a kid in the village. He had spat on me, and so I kicked the shit out of him, I mean he was twelve years old, but I completely owned the fuck-headed ass… Naturally I got into trouble for it, and the local school head had to lock me in his office until I got picked up. Jein was at work so my Mum came. She cried, apologized like a scratched record and took me home. The moment we were out of the public view she turned on me. The only lasting damage was that she broke my arm, and gave me a concussion. When Jein found out he went to the village to look for my birth mother. He told me that it would probably be better if I stayed with someone else for a while. I didn't want to…I thought, for some stupid reason, that if I kept up my efforts my mum would eventually love me." There was a beat as I stared at him with horror. How could he sound so damn casual, so damn normal when his mum had done that to him?

Before I can say anything he continues with his horrific story.

"Jein couldn't find her, I mean, it was only natural she had long gone…But he did find out that she had recently given birth to another child who she had taken with her…This child that she had kept, unlike me who was taken by my father and thrust into the arms of my mum. This child that was carried to safety by its real parent. Funny thing is I never found out about my other sibling. I don't know if the brat was a boy, or a girl, if it was human or…if it's hair was the colour of blood too. I don't know if it's still alive, or if it died…I don't know, and at that time I didn't care. That child and that woman had nothing to do with me, you know? But now whenever I see someone with slanted eyes like she had, or with red hair, or features anywhere near similar to mine I think- could we share the same blood? Could I know them?" He stops and breathes out hard, "It's very hard for yokai's and humans to have kids, the two's…uh…bodies don't normally mix to well, which means that only a few people can actually give birth to people like us…"

I look down at the girl in his arm and see with a painful jolt through my chest that her large eyes are slanted a lot like Gojyo's are.

That could just be coincidence, it's true but…

He gives out a raged breath, "Humans did this." He whispers.

"How do you know?"

"Because the Yokai would have ripped her apart and toyed with her more."

I know he's speaking the truth as I look down at her perfectly intact body, her young, innocent face so relaxed and slack jawed I could almost believe that she was just sleeping.

"The race that we've been saving by killing the Yokai, the 'clean' race, they did this. This is the race that we will leave dominant and victorious the moment the Minus wave is stopped. The moment Yokai regain their senses and humans turn on them like the real monsters they are."

I just nod slowly. Little splashes of water are hitting the girls face, and although he has his chin buried so hard into his chest it looks painful I know he's crying behind the curtain of red hair.

Hakkai once told me that Gojyo's never cried in his life. I believed him, and I still do. Gojyo isn't the type to cry, he's too stubborn to admit the feeling of defeat that comes with it.

And now he's crying, now there are tears streaking down his face…Mine too, I'm sobbing actually, though I don't remember starting too.

It's painful to see. It's so painful that I can honestly say that I would rather have my arms cut off then feel it for a moment longer.

"You want to know something really sick Goku?" his voice is still so even it's terrifying.

"What?" I manage to gasp out as I hear him break to.

"I bet she's so god damn happy that she's dead." He buries his face into her stomach and makes a noise that makes me feel like my hearts been wrenched from my ribcage.

"I bet she was so glad when it was all over."

I bite down on my own arm to try and stifle the painful sob that's trying to force it's way through my mouth.

For a long time we just sit like that, until eventually Gojyo's lifts his head and he looks directly at me.

"Get back to the camp. I'm going to bury her, but I may be a while. Don't say a word to Hakkai, alright?"

I understand.

With a single nod I turn and leave him there alone with the dead little girl still gripped in his arms.

-

**Gojyo**

I step back into the camp and look around. It's late and the sky is peppered with stars. I can see the remains of a smouldering campfire, and I can see Hakkai sitting beside it waiting for me.

I've covered in blood, only some of which is mine, and I feel empty.

Hakkai gets up and walks steadily toward me. Looks like the Monkey might have let something slip to him.

But judging from his expression all Hakkai knows is that I'm hurting and that I just killed five guys.

"Gojyo…"

"They were pretty easy to find you know." I slur. I killed them and then downed their supply of whiskey, "I could smell the blood on their hands."

"Gojyo what happened?"

I shake my head, feeling it reel as he gets closer and closer. "Nothing did Hakkai… that's the problem, to the rest of the world what just happened…was nothing."

He's there a second later, and I'm holding him, my face buried into his shoulder. But I'm not fooling anyone; those damn tears are back again.

"Gojyo…" I hear him sigh with serious concern before he puts his arm around me and draws me in.

I can't help but let out a muffled sob into his shoulder.

"Today was meant to be a normal day you know? It was meant to be a perfectly normal day."

I feel his grip tighten, I feel his insecurity. I know he doesn't know what the hell to do but listen. I can feel he wants me to tell him…but I can't.

I can't get the words out yet, so all manage to choke out in the end is.

"Today is one of the worst days of my life."

It's all I can say.

It's the only truthful thing I can tell my best friend.

Today is one of the worst days of my life.

And I'm sure that the Monkey lying somewhere beside Sanzo, pretending to be asleep, agrees.

-

**Hope you all liked, please review!**


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